Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1887-07-09

Fat, as most every one knows, is gene
rated in the system by the conversion of
fibrine and albumen into adipose tissue.
Though fluid in the living. il becomes
solid in the dead body. The use of fat is
of the utmost importance to health, as be-
ing one of the chief agents in the genera
ton of heat. Fat also lubricates the joints
and tendons of the body. and. in the same
manner as the grease applied to machinery
and vehicles, allows the bones to play in
their sockets and the muscles to glide over
each other without waste. danger or fric-
ton.
Excessive fatness, or corpulancy most
commonly takes place after the age of 40,
but is not confined to any particular period
of life, being found in childhood and
youth. The causes of corpulency are both
natural and acquired. There are some
pei sons who have natural tendency to
to corpulence in others it may be induced
by modes of life. indolent and sedentary
habits, and living chiefly on albumens,
such as oats and corn barley, with sweet
milk and buttermilk, and fat meats.
Sugar is the best fattener known.
1t il certain that exercise, anxiety OF
mind, want OF sleep and spare food are
circumstances opposed to fairness. This
fact is illustrated by Shakespeare, when
Cesar says to Antony
Let me have men about me that are fat
Sleek headed men, and such as sleep at night,
Yon Cassius has a lean and hungry look.
He thinks too much: such men are dangerous.
Antony and Dolabella were both men of
moderate obesity. The ancients held fat
people in sovereign contempt. The
II. l. 81 oh oil M
voluminous development OF the bosom {;
to prevent it they were in the habit of ap-
plying to their breasts the raw flesh OF a
fish called angel. Some OF the Gentoos
enter their dwellings by hole in the roof.
and any fat person who cannot get
through it they consider as an excommu-
nicated offender, who has not been able to
rid himself of his sins. An eastern prince
had an officer to regulate the size of his
subjects, and who dieted the unwieldy
ones to reduce them to proper volume.
In China this calamity is considered bles-
sing: a mans intellectual qualities are
esteemed in the ratio OF his corporeal bulk.
In some countries, especially in the
east, moderate obesity is considered a
beauty; and Tunisene young ladies are
regularly fattened tor marriage, differ
ent practice from that of Roman matrons.
who starved their daughters to make them
as lean as possible on such occasions.
Erasmus states that the Gordii carried
their admiration of corpulence to such an
extent that they raised the latest among
them to the throne 1t is well known that
the preposterous size of some of the Hot
tentots is deemed perfection, and thirty
EtL1 nxyk1 l.
tied in London.
The women of Egypt, in order to
acquire degree of tatness, battle them
selves several days in lukewarm water.
They stay so long in their baths that they
eat and drink therein. During the time
they are in the bath they take every half
hour some broth made of tat pullet and
stuffed with sweet almonds, hazel nuts
and pistacho nuts. After takiug this sort
of broth four times they eat pullet. all
but the head When they come out of the
bath they are anointed with perfumes and
sweet-scepted pomatum, and after that
some of them eat myrobolans before 60
ing to bed others take draught prepared
with tragacanth and sugar candy.
There are numerous very remarkable
cases of corpulence. Daniel Lambert.
who died in England in 1909, weighed 739
pounds few days before his death. In
Sparta, Nauclis, the son OF Palytus, was
brought before the ephors, and his excess
sive corpulence was exposed to the public.
He was. moreover. threatened with per-
petual Punishment If he failed to reduce
his body within reasonable dimensions.
DR.. Deddoes of London was so
enormously fat that the ladies used to call
him the walking feather bed.
The following lines were inscribed on
the tomb of an uncomfortably corpulent
tallow chandler:
Here lies in earth an honest fellow.
Who died by fat and lived by tallow.
There are cases on record where un-
weidiness led to estimation. The corpu-
lent antiquary erase was requested by his
butcher to tell all his friends that he
bought his meat from him, and the
purveyors of Cambridge, England, used to
say. "God bless you, sir!' to a gigantic
pre- fessor when he walked over their work.
Troy Times.